


I Feel Your Pain

by rohanrider3



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Cartoon), Guardians of the Galaxy (Comics), Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-16
Updated: 2017-11-16
Packaged: 2019-02-02 19:13:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12732576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rohanrider3/pseuds/rohanrider3
Summary: Being an empath isn’t easy. Being an empath while your new best friend is undergoing the next best thing to heart surgery—without anesthetic—is almost impossible.





	I Feel Your Pain

**Author's Note:**

  * For [eringeosphere](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eringeosphere/gifts).



> Takes place during the chapter “The Deepest Cut” of “Peter Quill and the (Mostly) Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day”) from Mantis’ POV instead of Peter’s. 
> 
> Many thanks to eringeosphere for helping me see the inherent possibilities in having an _empath_ in _Peter's_ head during this scene. Hang on to your feels!

Mantis bit her lip. She would not cry. She would not.

Even though her friend was hurting.

Even though he’d almost died.

Mantis tried very hard not to keep count of how many times Peter Quill also known as Star-Lord had nearly died since the short time she’d met him. He’d been so full of energy and blazing, angry life back on the planet—back on Ego—back when he’d been fighting his father. And now he was stretched out, weak and fading and bleeding out, all over the floor of some dirty old Ravager cargo bay.

Peter Quill had almost died—oh, she’d lost count of the times today.

The count was high.

It was very high.

But he would not die now. He could not. Not with his father—his real father—and his friends all around him, all worried for him, all helping him. She was helping too. Not very much, perhaps, but as much as she could. Which was all she could do, to be honest.

But Peter did not know that.

He did not understand.

Mantis sniffled, gulped, tried explaining it to him again. “Ego left an arrow shard in your chest from before.” she said. “And he made it so that when you talk, it—it gets closer to piercing your heart.”

Peter did not understand her. He was too busy screaming. Trying to scream, that was. The thick leather strap wedged between his clenched teeth absorbed most of the sound.

Not enough for her empathatic senses to tune out, though.

Mantis swallowed hard. “You can’t—you can’t talk, Peter. Ego made the shard respond to the sound of your voice. You can’t talk or say anything, n—not until we—we—we have to get it out.”

Tentatively, she readjusted her grip ever so slightly. She was holding Peter’s head in between her hands, trying her best to keep him still and to use her powers to stave off the convulsions that even now shook through his body, the convulsions which tried locking up his chest and lungs and would have stolen the little air he could breathe at the moment.

She would not let it happen.

She would not let Peter die.

She would not let his own body betray him like that, cut off his air, drain the life from his eyes.

But she could not stop him from hurting.

Or from being afraid.

Because he was afraid. So very afraid. Mantis felt her eyes begin to tear up even worse as Peter tried screaming again, as he ripped his hand away from Gamorra’s and fought a futile battle with both gravity and the strength of Drax’s grim hold.

A tiny sound from behind her, thin and sobbing and heart-rendingly agonized.

“Iamgroooooooooo—“

Another voice, thick and husky. “Don’ look, lil’ buddy. Don’ look. Petey wouldn’t want you to, okay? I promise we’re not hurting him—I mean, we are, but we don’t want to, but, but we gotta do it, cuz he’ll—he’ll die otherwise—-aw, gods, Groot, no, no, I said _don’t_ look—“

The little tree behind her sobbed harder. He must have caught sight of the unmitigated terror on his friend’s bloody face. Peter’s usually sunny features were twisted in agony, and the hard, angry look he suddenly directed up at her ripped straight into her heart.

Mantis began to cry in earnest, her tears welling up and dripping down onto Peter’s upturned face. He blinked, looking, just for a moment, remorseful—but uncomprehending terror, swiftly hidden by burning anger, soon wrenched its way back into place. He looked over her shoulder, eyes wide in desperate pleading, and Mantis heard Rocket gulp convulsively and heard the shifting sounds his paws made as he turned away. Groot’s thin pleading to _stop hurting Peter, stop, stop, stop, please stop, make them stop it Rocket_ —faded as Rocket, clutching the little twig to his chest, staggered a few steps away.

Oh, dear. Peter thought Rocket had betrayed him, doing that. And he was mad now. He was still scared, of course. And confused. And in considerable pain. But those emotions were just making him even angrier.

And Angry Peter equaled Dangerous Peter.

Dangerous Peter was not above doing something extraordinarily foolhardy. Mantis remembered how he’d stayed and fought a doomed battle with Ego rather than abandon her. She wouldn’t put it past him to try and fight free of—she counted in her head—her, Drax, Gamorra, Yondu, Kraglin—one, two, three, four, _five_ people holding him down. Despite the fact that he had an all but instantly lethal shrapnel wound in his chest, currently open, bleeding, and deep. Not to mention his other injuries.

She should probably warn them that Peter was going to try and kick his way free.

She did.

They adjusted their grips accordingly.

Peter kicked. But did not get free.

Oh. Oh, no.

Now Peter was not angry. He was just scared. The anger had, only for a moment, hidden the fear, but now the terror was back, and all the stronger for having been so stubbornly thrust away.

He wasn’t even fighting anymore.

Because he’d remembered.

Mantis gasped as Peter’s frantic, fragmented thoughts flew his his mind and she sensed them through her fingers. For the first time, she understood just how deep Jason’s plan had been. How he’d purposefully used his son’s own heart against him. Controlling Yondu, attempting to destroy the Guardians, distancing the Nova Corps—all of it part of his attempt to control and dominate his son.

And if control or manipulation of Peter’s strong emotions and loyal spirit proved impossible, cruel, malicious harm would have to do.

The evidence of that had been buried deep in Peter’s chest.

Oh, _Peter_.

Peter’s struggles weakened momentarily. His eyes squeezed shut as his face crumpled and his mouth skewed awkwardly to one side. His shoulders began to shake, and for a horrible moment Mantis thought she’d failed, and that Peter was going to choke to death because his _only_ worthless friend had failed to keep him alive until proper medical help arrived.

Then she gasped.

Because the truth was, in a way, far worse.

“Oh!” Mantis cried out. Gamorra threw her a bewildered, frantic look. “Oh!” Mantis sobbed, feeling tears that were not her own begin to slide through her fingers. “Oh, no!” she sobbed, her own hands starting to tremble.

“Peter thinks—oh, he thinks we do not love him! He thinks we _want_ to hurt him! He does not know why but he does think it, and oh, he is so _sad_!”

Gamorra made a pained sound and Drax rasped something about never, never, _never_ hurting Peter on purpose, not even metaphorically, and Rocket and Groot were whimpering too hard to say anything. Yondu was still whistling, but his own face had twisted and he looked sick. Over Drax’s shoulder, the scarred Ravager called Kraglin had gone a sickly pale-green color.

With an effort, Mantis swallowed her own sobs and tried to soothe her wounded friend. “No, Peter, no,” she said. Clumsily, she tried stroking his temples with her unsteady thumbs. It was hard. He was shaking so hard himself, and his eyes, when they opened, were distant and dull with a deep pain so horrible it literally hurt to see it.

Mantis sobbed again, and tried explaining what she saw and understood to the others. They tried comforting Peter as well, reaching out, touching him, voices running over one another as they tried to explain. Then, just as it started, Mantis realized what Peter’s reaction was going to be.

“No!” she cried, but it was too late.

Peter’d begun to fight, lashing out in utter, agonized heartbreak. Which did not bode well for either his wellbeing or their impromptu—and neccessary—heart surgery.

“No, Peter!” she cried again, over the garbled scream he was giving, trying to make him believe her through the raging emotional storm of his bewildered pain, tormented hurt, and awful, agonized doubt.

“No, Peter—we do love you, we do! We do not want to hurt you—and Yondu does not want to hurt you! It was not his fault when he hurt you and laughed about it and then threw you to the Ravagers!! That was Jason controlling him, Yondu never would have done that, not ever, not ever, _not ever_!”

Yondu’s whistle cracked for a second, then picked up again.

“—and we don’t want to torture you, we do love you, Peter, we _do_ , and we _don’t_ think you’re annoying and weak, we _don’t,_ please, please don’t even think that—oh, oh, oh Peter—no, no, _no_ , you have to believe us—we want you here—Peter, no, no, no, don’t believe that we don’t want you—we want you, _all_ of us _want_ you, we want you here so _much_ —“

It took fifteen more awful minutes until the shard was safely extracted from Peter’s chest.

Fifteen minutes where Mantis felt Peter’s struggles abruptly cease along with any hope in his heart, and where she saw the light leave his eyes to be replaced by a bleak, dull, lightless stare.

But later, much later, she saw the light come back.

She was glad.

She never wanted it to leave again.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey eringeosphere, I hope this little something makes you happy enough to want to dance like Baby Groot ;) (No actual dancing required, though) ;) :)


End file.
